1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a computer system for executing a plurality of applications on a processor while switching over the applications, and displaying a content of the execution thereof on a display device.
2. Description of the Related Art
A window system has hitherto been employed when executing a plurality of applications while being switched over on a computer system. In the window system, when simultaneously executing the plurality of applications, an image of each application to be executed is displayed in a separately independent window on a single display device. On this occasion, an active application is displayed in a foremost window, while other applications are displayed in windows superposed toward a rearmost side in the window system. Further, the input data from the keyboard are transferred to the active application, i.e., the application corresponding to the window displayed in the foremost window.
In the window system, however, if the plurality of windows are superposed, it may happen that the window in which the process should resume by making a status thereof active is hidden by other windows. Therefore, a defect is that it is time-consuming to search the window which should be made active. Further, in the case of making an inventory reference of goods while receiving an order on the telephone, it is required that an application of the inventory reference and an application of a sales input be executed simultaneously. However, processing contents of the two applications must be displayed simultaneously, and hence a considerably large-sized display device is needed. In this case, there can be also considered a method of obtaining the same effect as if a display screen appears large in size by reducing a display of characters on a normal-sized display device. However, the characters are small and therefore hard to read, resulting in deterioration in terms of working efficiency and an easy-to-occur error as well. Accordingly, as a matter of fact, there is no alternative but to arrange a plurality of computers for use, which in turn requires a great amount of costs for the hardware and a large installation space therefor.
It is an object of the present invention, which was contrived in view of such problems inherent in the prior art, to provide a computer system capable of displaying processing contents by simultaneously executing a plurality of applications without using a large-sized display device and requiring a plurality of computers.